


Torchlight

by feralphoenix



Category: Blaze Union
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-05
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-20 10:03:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/pseuds/feralphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nessiah, cold mornings, solitude, and nagging doubts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Torchlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [intaglionyx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/intaglionyx/gifts).



> _(and we lie: “I’ll never leave you.”_ – teach me the definition of a mistake)

The chapel had a biting cold to it. The effect was rather reminiscent of the atmosphere of a chilly morning after the rain.

Everyone else had left—the royal courtiers, the queen, the princess, the members of the princess’ as-yet unofficial private guard, the funerary officials. Alone, Nessiah left the shadows and tread down the red-carpeted center aisle with a cautious gait, skimming his fingertips along the corners of the pews.

The casket lay on a raised pedestal before the pulpit. It was open, and unguarded besides, because none in the kingdom should dare to disturb this place. The thought that anyone might linger here or cause mischief wouldn’t cross anyone’s mind.

Anyone’s mind but Nessiah’s, of course. He’s remained a cold spectator to these events the whole while, but even he did not intend any further mischief for now. These past few weeks have been overall too close a shave for his taste anyway.

With something like curiosity in his chest, he came to a stop before the casket and glanced down impassively at its occupant.

She wore white and silver, a dress custom-tailored and seeded with real diamonds and pearls. It was a vanity that even the government of Bronquia would have been hard-pressed to afford. After several years spent over the imperial border, it was almost distasteful to look back upon the gaudiness of the kingdom: He had not been watching them very closely all that time, trusting Fantasinia to stay stable until he had business with it again.

The effect of the color against her death-pallid skin made the corpse of Yggdra Yuril Artwaltz look rather like a marble statue. He reached out, touched fingertips to the hands folded over the base of her ribs. They were every bit as cold and immobile as stone.

The chapel was perfumed, but Nessiah could still detect the scent of the chemicals and magicks used to preserve the body. A human might not be able to, but the smell was acrid at the back of his throat and made him feel slightly ill at ease. He wouldn’t succumb to nausea over something so paltry, but even so he would be happy to hear the doors of this place close behind him.

Still, he lingered, staring down at the princess’ body. He retracted his hand, let it rest at his side, hidden in his full sleeve. The corpse’s face had been made up, her lips painted light pink. Some mortician had apparently been given the thankless task of cleaning up and reconstructing her chest, because to Nessiah’s memory her ribcage had been completely crushed by the blow that had killed her, and before him it had regained near-normal proportions. He wasn’t sure how it had been accomplished. His magic could work with the dead, but he mostly didn’t care about making them presentable: His powers would knit a body back together, but the emphasis was on the structural integrity of muscle, sinew, and bone. Collapsed ribcages and damaged organs were out of his jurisdiction.

He stared at the dead girl, prettied and painted like an oversized doll. She would be mourned by a country tomorrow, laid to rest in the royal mausoleum with a stifling amount of pomp and circumstance. The ceremony would take most of the day, according to the plans the widowed queen and court had drawn up.

The girl who had killed the princess had seen far less decorum in her burial. No one had washed the blood from her skin, hidden the stab wounds that had ended her life, or found a pretty coffin for her to lie in. Gram Blaze had gathered at daybreak outside the castle bounds, dug a shallow hole in the earth, and put Emilia’s body in the ground. The spot was marked only by a blank stone, to keep grieving Fantasinians from defacing the site in their rage.

Immediately afterward, Medoute had left, and Garlot had gone with her.

They’d exchanged goodbyes with everyone at the end of the funeral. When Garlot had stood across from Nessiah, he had reached out so that they were holding each other’s hands, tried—and failed horribly—to smile, and turned away without a word.

Nessiah paced the length of the princess’ coffin. He did not understand his thoughts, nor what he was really feeling, because his thoughts and emotions made very little sense.

This was not an undesirable outcome. Aegina held the Gran Centurio, and she respected him more than she respected the sword’s history. Furthermore, Emilia had kindly done his work for him and made certain that the kingdom would be filled with unrest for many years to come. The resentment and distrust of the people would become his strength as long as his sword remained here, and he would not have to make Aegina stain her hands overmuch before he reclaimed it.

This was a good conclusion, one that put him several steps toward finally claiming revenge on the gods. This was more than he could have reasonably expected when the private army had charged headlong over the border into Fantasinia on a hope and a lot of adrenaline and foolhardiness.

But something about the three children whose deaths had bought his success—something about Garlot’s dead eyes and thousand-yard-stare, the day they had parted—nagged at him, and Nessiah could not understand what it was.

He turned and walked back down the aisle. His steps were featherlight. He made absolutely no noise.

At the doors, he turned halfway, the toes of one foot pointing in the direction of the dead princess.

If this conclusion was so perfect—then why on earth did he feel as though he had made a desperately wrong turn somewhere?


End file.
